i have cleaned nearly every inch of my apartment

i found this sign in my neighborhood and thought that it was cute (click it for the full photo):



i finished reading the book "smashed : story of a drunken girlhood" by koren zailckas.
it's supposed to be a fascinating memoir on koren's "drunken girlhood".
i suppose the book was likable, but it was a little over the top.
i could have lived without the pop-culture references mentioned on nearly EVERY PAGE.
in fact, it probably would have made the book more enjoyable to read.
the memoir (like so many others) is supposed to be made into a film soon.
i can't even see myself enjoying the movie version.

i am half-way through reading the book "blink" by malcolm gladwell.
this was another book that got a lot of hype.
and i think this book actually deserved it.
it makes you question your immediate gut-instincts and what you would do in a blink of an eye.
it goes over series of various tests, statistics and algorithms to prove points.
there is also a section of the book about the music artist kenna (who i love), so that makes it even more enjoyable to me.

on sunday night i decided to make cooky cookies with my new stand-up mixer (a black friday buy that i will go into further later).
normally i follow the recipe as usual.
but this time i grated up some orange peel and added that and orange peel powder to the ingredients.
i also added chocolate chips to some.
if you don't like oranges, then you probably would not like my results.
but i love them. especially the ones i added chocolate chips to.
i plan on taking some to my co-worker (doug) tomorrow and see if he likes them or not.
he'll eat just about anything so i dunno if he is a good food critic, but maybe he will enjoy them.

i tried to call my sister on thanksgiving, but it went straight to voicemail.
and i was thinking maybe my mom would finally call me on thanksgiving... but she never did.
it is my first thanksgiving/christmas a way from family, and they did not care to call me.
mom has not even emailed me back in the last 2 or 3 months.
i guess i could continue to keep pushing for a relationship with her...
but i am the kind of person that always waits for the other person to initiate contact.
only because i feel like i am intruding.

so i spent thanksgiving with steve and his mom.
she made a nice meal that we were not able to eat until about 7 or 8pm. lol
the turkey just didn't want to cook.
but it was nice visiting with her and steve and watching Big and playing some weird dice game.
i brought sweet potatoes for our thanksgiving dinner.
i never make them because i don't like them. so it was a first for me.
i followed a recipe that said to make them with orange juice.
at first, i thought it'd like them... but no, i didn't.

even after staying awake well until midnight or 1am on thanksgiving, i decided to wake up at 5:30am to go to target for black friday shopping.
i had my list and my plan.
i was to go in and get what i needed and get the hell out.
well, when i got there a little before 6am (when the store opened), there was a line of customers wrapped all the way around the outside of the building.
as i was making my way to the back of the line, it finally started to move a bit.
it didn't take long for us all to get into the store.
i grabbed a shopping cart (bad mistake, but i needed it) and made my way to my priority items on my list.
i was surprised that there was plenty stock of the kitchen items i was going to buy (the crockpot and stand mixer).
after i made sure those two items were safely in my shopping cart, i continued on with my list.
all the while people are hitting you with their shopping carts and not really bothering to acknowledge what they just did.
then there was the task of trying to find where the check-out line begins and ends.
i ended up somehow in the electronics check-out line.
which took about 45 minutes of waiting and bonding with my fellow customers around me.
after check-out, i still had to push my way (with my cart) back through the crowds of people to get to the front of the store to leave.
by the time i exited the store, i was so mentally drained that i decided no more black friday shopping.
so this year was my FIRST and LAST time shopping black friday.

a few weeks ago, this column was posted in the Inlander under the "I Saw You" section (click it for the full photo):



naturally, i felt that steve needed to make a reply back to it.
so we emailed a response to the Inlander promptly about it:

I wasn't choking on your odor, I was choking on my pride.
I couldn't bring myself to speak to you at the time, and for that I am eternally sorry.
As an educated business-woman society tries to keep us apart, but I will no longer let society dictate my life.
You take my breath away, yet only asked for a dollar.
Would you accept my heart instead?
A 3-course dinner, a couple drinks, then relax in my jacuzzi.
You can search me for change.

my guess is that they got so many people replying back to it, they chose not to print any of them.
because ours has not gotten printed in the last couple of issues. :(
the only result of emailing them the above passage proved was that they sell your email address asap to other companies and you get hit hard with spam mail.
luckily, i used a spare email address i have laying around.

as many of you may know, i had been sick (amongst other things) the last few months.
i have finally regained all of my energy back!
and just in time to have my hours cut-back to part-time again at work.
so, this means i have cleaned nearly every inch of my apartment (and washed every article of dirty clothing) and now i am so terribly bored.
i've cooked and baked all that i can.
i've walked the dog more times than she has needed.
i'm more than half way through a book i started less than 5 days ago.
i'm in the process of researching a long list of household items (empty dish soap bottles, egg cartons, etc) and what they actually can be reused for.
i guess at the moment i feel like i am going a bit (more) crazy.

i subscribe to rss feeds for 35 financial type blogs.
one of them is even in a different language.
i just like the photos she posts. lol
i have WAAAAAAAAAAY too much time on my hands now.

i need friends?